


The Princess & The Criminal

by jeanatilvermony



Category: 80s - Fandom, The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Loss of Virginity, Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27666892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeanatilvermony/pseuds/jeanatilvermony
Summary: As Saturday detention comes to an end, both John Bender and Claire Standish try to define what it is exactly that's building between them. It's a feeling that's ever-present and dizzying...something that neither of them thought was possible to feel until they locked eyes for the first time. Could it be as plain as intense physical attraction or is it something much, much more meaningful?
Relationships: Andrew Clark/Allison Reynolds, Brian Johnson/Claire Standish, Brian Johnson/Original Female Character(s), John Bender/Claire Standish, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	The Princess & The Criminal

**Author's Note:**

> This is the story of how a suburban Princess and a brooding Criminal fall in-love.

_**Shermer, Illinois.** _

_**Saturday, March 24th, 1984.** _

_**Shermer High School.** _

_Dear Mr. Vernon,_

_We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us — in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal._

_Does that answer your question?_

_Sincerely yours,_

_**The Breakfast Club** _

Claire sat on the passenger side of her father’s silver BMW, looking out onto the passing cars beside them in a simmering silence while letting her thoughts become engulfed by the flurry of emotions that were still buzzing internally. 

Admittedly, she never walked into detention with the intention of changing her entire perspective on romance and friendship.

Never would have guessed that she’d let her deeply hidden attraction for John Bender come to light and expose her inner-most kept insecurities to a group of outcasts who did nothing but embrace her despite them.

Before today, she never even entertained the thought of giving away her beloved Chanel lipstick to the school basket case or finding something in common with the president of the Math club and, she most definitely did not expect to gift her first real kiss to the boy they’d always warned her to stay away from.

They, being her parents and her group of equally clueless friends.

It was all so much yet so little. She left school confused and worried about the guaranteed adversity that was to come from Monday morning when the whole school saw her greet Brian, Allison, Andy, and _John_.

How would she even go about acknowledging them? Would a simple wave be too vague? Would a hug be too invasive? If she kissed John on the steps before the bell rang, would he push her away? So many questions attacked her all at once, the pressure to assimilate to the status quo coming back to consume her thoughts.

“ _What’s gonna happen to us on Monday?_ ” She remembers Brian’s question to the group right before all their insults and confessions went flying around the room. She couldn’t help but let their stinging words come back to the surface.

**“You’re so conceited Claire.”**

**“Fucking Rapunzel, right?! You got everything! And I got shit!”**

**“Oh, you're breaking my heart. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”**

It was a brutal realization to swallow but, perhaps there was some truth to their words. As harsh as they were.

She was a princess. She was used to the privilege that she had always known and never bothered to immerse herself in anything different.

She was a coward in many ways. She cared about how others viewed her. She could also be vain, materialistic, and superficial to a degree but, despite all of these truths…she was also the weakest person she knew.

In truth, she cried more than she smiled. Even on the rare days that she shared dinner with both of her parents or went shopping with her friends, she felt the loneliest. Sometimes, when she looked in the mirror, she hated the emptiness that she found in her eyes. It was the same emptiness she saw in her mother's when she would drink herself to sleep.

She too craved a sense of belonging and happiness, happiness, and belonging that just could not be found in what she had grown so accustomed to. That's why, when John had yelled at her in the midst of her confession and when he acknowledged the fear in her eyes at the thought of becoming like her parents...when he later kissed her and whispered an apology into her ear while they stood in the janitor's closet, she felt stripped of any and everything. Despite the hurt and betrayal, despite the confusion and passion, she simply couldn't run away from any of it. Not from John, not from herself, not from anyone.

Nothing that Claire thought to be written in stone was concrete to her anymore, and regardless of what anyone else thought, she simply could not go back to what she was used to. She simply refused to act as if today didn’t happen, as if she hadn’t found a sense of belonging in Allison, Brian, Andy, and even John. She saw them at their most vulnerable and they saw her, for what she truly was.

A princess with a fragile heart.

To act as if none of it happened. As if she wasn’t fascinated by Allison’s wonderous mind, as if she didn’t adore Brian’s gullibility, as if she didn’t admire Andy’s newfound bravery towards choosing his own path versus the path his father demanded of him.

As if she didn’t feel her entire body thrum with butterflies when she looked into the dark warmth of John Bender's brown eyes. To act as if none of it had happened was simply not an option.

Everything had changed the minute she let go of John’s hand on the steps, the minute she pulled away from their kiss and waved her goodbyes to Allison, Brian, and Andy.

"Your Mother will be home from soon from the country club to have dinner. I hope by then you'll be ready to explain what it is that I saw back at school." 

Wordlessly, as her father pulled into the driveway of their white-columned dream home, Claire took in a deep breath and swore to herself. She would do right by them and simply try.

Simply and truly try to be there; for her new friends and especially, for John.

* * *

With a contemplative sigh, John slowly made his way home…letting his usually frustrated thoughts fall into the memory of just moments before.

When he walked to Shermer High School that morning, he never expected to leave with so much to look forward to on the next school day.

He never expected to be sharing a joint with a mega nerd like Brian Johnson, actually relating to a douchebag jock like Andrew Clarke, confessing his truths in front of a nutjob like Allison Reynolds, and, most of all, end the day by making out with a girl like Claire Standish in an old janitor’s closet.

It all felt so foreign to him. He’d usually be plotting on ways to fuck it all up by now but, much to his damn surprise, he couldn’t even be bothered with that.

All he could think about was the way everyone laughed at the end of detention, the way everyone bared their souls out to each other…the way Claire had looked in his eyes, tears falling from hers when she said she’d never become like her Mother.

He regretted it now. The cruel way in which he had talked to her.

He let the years of pent-up anger speak for him at that moment, he simply couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth when he started ripping into her about her privileged little life.

After Claire had confessed that she would hesitate to speak to all of them after detention was over, he couldn’t help but feel that intense sting of rejection overcome him. All he could think about after she said it was how much he wanted her yet, hated the essence of who she was. No, not her as a person but, everything that her image represented.

It made him think about the moment he first laid eyes on her.

He was sitting outside of Vernon’s office (in his designated chair) when she walked right past him, towards her locker. He remembers seeing her long legs first, sleazily ogling her all the way up to the curve of her tiny waist before becoming quite fascinated by the peculiar shade of her auburn hair. It was up to her shoulders in length but it shimmered, like the middle flames of a lit candle and perfectly accentuated the frame of her pale face.

Her features were as soft as her hair. Soft cheeks, soft-looking lips, soft-looking skin. She looked like a girl straight out of one of those 1960s magazines that his mother used to hoard.

After observing her for a few fleeting seconds, he concluded that she was the prettiest redhead he’d ever seen, probably even the prettiest girl he’d ever seen at school, although…he’d never admit that out loud.

He continued to watch her, eyes watching the smack of her lips as she re-applied her lipstick over the small mirror in her locker. It wasn't until she turned to face his direction, probably sensing that someone had been watching her that he quickly snapped his eyes towards Vernon's office door and snapped back to his senses.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he thought to himself. Since when did he did regard girls as "pretty" instead of easy and especially, even consider girls like her. This girl was most definitely just as stuck-up and entitled as the rest of the girls who dressed like her.

Flashy jewelry, high heels, and clothes that were clearly purchased from the nearest fashion mall…they were all one and the same. They walked up and down the halls as if the rest of the student body worshipped their every step, blissfully oblivious to the tribulations of anyone who didn’t own a fucking BMW.

There was a moment, a moment when he was entertaining himself by trying to embarrass Brian for his terrible attempt at embellishing his virginity status when his perception of Claire sort of shifted.

It caught John off guard when, instead of degrading or joining in on the fun of laughing at him, Claire comforted Brian, telling him it was okay that he was still a virgin. He couldn’t rationalize why, but, her response intrigued him and it partially convinced him that maybe...Claire was different.

Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t all that he made her out to be. Maybe, she wasn’t just another self-absorbed rich girl with a pretty face. Maybe, she didn't turn her nose up at the sight of ratty boys like him. Maybe, he could kiss her one day and she wouldn’t pull away.

Momentarily, after she had made them aware of her most selfish vulnerabilities, his hopes for her had been drowned out from the anger of being rejected by the girl he knew was too far outside of his reach. The only thing he could think to do at that moment was to retrieve that trusty defense mechanism he'd learned to use so well and let have with a scathing monologue of the most hurtful shit he could think to say to her.

Looking at it now, he hated how much he sounded like his father at that moment.

He expected Claire to hate him too, that was his intention after all.

He wanted her to feel the hurt he was feeling at the unfairness in her voice, even if it meant making her feel weak and demeaned by him. Even if it meant making her cry like he'd seen his father do to his mother. Again, thinking about it now made him feel even more confused as to why she hadn't responded with a resounding "fuck you forever" before slapping the shit out of him. That's precisely why, when she opened the door to the janitor's closet; sporting that sweet smile of hers before pressing her lips to his neck...his defenses completely dissolved.

He wanted to reject her, push her as far away as possible and make her remember the words he had just yelled at her in front of everyone but, he didn't. Instead, he asked her why she kissed him and waited for her response.

She smiled at that, telling him she did it because she knew he wouldn't. He couldn't understand why he responded to that with an embrace, a two-word apology, and a kiss but, all he wanted after that was her.

So, he took what she gave him, and well, the rest was now embedded into a stream of unsteady thoughts as he approached the familiarity of the train tracks in front of his hell-hole of a home.

There was so much left unspoken between them, he still wasn't even sure what the fuck any of it meant, and truthfully, he didn't know how he would or should react to the possibility of her publicly acknowledging his presence (or disregarding it) from here on out. He still didn't even know how he'd respond if she were to request a relationship out of this, whatever it was, because he hadn't lied to her. He didn't do the one boy, one girl thing...with anyone.

Although, as he thought about her more and more, he couldn't help but wish she wouldn't kiss anyone else but him ever again.

At least, if nothing changed on Monday morning, he had the memory of her eager lips touching his and one-half of her favorite diamond earrings to hold onto.

* * *

Sunday had passed them all by as fast as it came. 

Allison spent the day on her back porch, drawing portraits of a wrestler with kind eyes.

Brian spent the day at church with his parents, per usual of a Sunday.

Andy spent the day on the track, burning all his energy in search of a clear mind.

Across the train tracks, John spent the day smoking through half a packet of cigarettes, laying on the roof of his house, and running his fingers over the diamond earring Claire had gifted him.

Typically, he'd probably be living it up with his stoner friends at a basement party or vandalizing an abandoned office building until the cops chased them through the neighborhood but, the wonder of what tomorrow would bring kept him locked away in the place he hated the most besides school.

Sundays were usually the easiest kind of days, days when he could find trouble where he wanted to, briefly escape the screams of his parents and the backhanded slaps of his old man's calloused palm. It was almost a routine.

This Sunday, however, was proving to be quite different. He'd managed to avoid his father the entire morning and his mother had barely even acknowledged his presence when he saw her sitting at the kitchen table, cigarette and Budweiser in hand. It almost seemed too good to be true until the yelling picked up again, the echoes of "fuck yous" signaling him to climb his way up to the safest part of the house. 

While he laid there, on the decaying rooftop of his childhood home, he found himself gazing at the sunset, letting the memory of Claire’s lips touching his neck drown out the sound of glass shattering in the kitchen.

On the other side of town, Claire did the same in her bedroom.

As expected of a Sunday, Claire's parents were again at each other's throats, arguing about the same argument they had last weekend, completely disregarding their daughter's presence as they attempted to share a family dinner. As soon as her mother had finished the entire bottle of Chambertin Grand all by herself, she knew a screaming match would surely follow.

In short, Claire took that as a cue to quickly excuse herself upstairs to her bedroom before distracting herself by preparing her outfit for school in the morning.

After deciding on a cute vintage mini-skirt and a beige Hilfiger sweater, she quietly prepared herself for bed, trying not to let the uncertainty of tomorrow and the raised voices muffled by the white walls surrounding her keep her awake for too long. 

In an almost poetic fashion, they were like mirrors of one another. Two completely different frameworks, glass carved into two different dimensions of present space but, broken and rearranged just the same. 

  
With a wish of good fate, they both turned onto their side and waited for sleep to take them, unaware that they would be facing directly at one another if they were together at that moment. 

.

.

.

Waiting for Monday morning never felt like this.

**Author's Note:**

> Writer's Note - Hi readers! My name is Jane and this is the first time I'm gathering the guts to actually upload one of my stories to this site so, please be gentle with your criticism lol :) I absolutely LOVE this movie and all of John Hughes' movies if I'm being totally honest; he's one of the reasons I chose to pursue an English major, so while I was re-watching it recently for the 100th time, I found myself dreaming up a portrait of how my favorite couple would've ended up after their first meeting in detention. ♡
> 
> p.s. It goes without saying but, obviously, all rights to these characters, their stories and, the movie plot belong to John Hughes and him only!


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